Question:
Shalom,
What would be the halacha in this case?
Over the course of 10 years, an employee occasionally did the work that others should have done, since he was concerned that the laxity of others would result in being machshil the rabbim. On some occasions, his immediate superiors asked him to actually perform their work for them, instead of doing it themselves.
He complained several times about the situation to lower management who said they will take care of the issues but generally, the problems continued.
Eventually, he brought up the issue with top management and requested reimbursement for the many hours of work put in his private home/family time.
Top management offered him half the hourly rate he requested, and then only paid for half of the hours worked. IE 25 cents on the dollar. They claimed that since too complicated to rehash everything after such a long time. they were doing him a favor by paying anything at all. This was after the employee sent in several emails each time with more and more detail of tens of such incidents and reasonable estimates of the hours involved.
Do you think this is a reasonable peshara? Is the employee really not owed anything halachically? Or should the employer pay more?
And tying this into my other recent question, would it make sense for the employer to claim that this peshara is enough compensation for an injury on the job, or is there no connection whatsoever between the 2 stories, since this is compensation for other work performed?
Answer:
Answer from Horav Yosef Fleishman shlita.
There are several problems-The employer can say he doesn’t know that you did the work –the burden of proof is on you since you are the motsi. Secondly he may have paid someone else for the work that you did and therefore you really worked for the other employee rather than for the employer. Thirdly you are a yoreid if the employer didn’t ask you to the work-this means that you may not be entitled to the salary normally paid for the job since it is yodecho al hatachtono-maybe thycoud get someone who would work for less money. However it has nothing to do with your injury.
